Lake levels

[wissoxfan83]

Hi John, I assume that this winter will lead to higher lake levels, not only on Superior, but the others as well. Any predictions on how much they will come up?

 

[jd]

Actually, the cold season is the draw down season for the lake- historically anyway. With it being so cold and also so much ice in the lake this season, that will lower the amount of evaporation and thus lowering that takes place during the cold season. Plus there has been a fairly decent amount of system snow in the drainage basin this winter, so the typical spring bounce might have a bit more spring to it, but late spriing, all of summer and early autumn precip really determines the lake level.

-John

 

[88skier]

John is probably aware of this site, but the Army Corps of Engineers monitors the Great Lakes water levels and writes a weekly report on them. You can see that the water level has barely dropped this winter and looks to make a pretty impressive increase this spring and summer. MI/Huron are already 14 inches above the level at this time last year! Superior is also at it's long term average right now for this date.

http://www.lre.usace.army.mil/Missions/GreatLakesInformation/GreatLakesWaterLevels/WaterLevelForecast/WeeklyGreatLakesWaterLevels.aspx

http://www.lre.usace.army.mil/Portals/69/docs/GreatLakesInfo/docs/WaterLevels/DailyLevelsEnglish.pdf